


Missing Pilot 21 (Joshler)

by missingpilot



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Airplane, Horror, M/M, Missing, Mystery, Paranormal, Thriller, josh dun - Freeform, joshler - Freeform, joshua dun - Freeform, pilot, twenty one pilots - Freeform, tyler joseph - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2020-01-05 18:31:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18371702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missingpilot/pseuds/missingpilot
Summary: "I want you to take the old plane out. But don't come back down."Tyler's a pilot with nothing to lose. He meets someone who has everything to gain.





	1. 1

_Dad_ was such a lightweight word. But my  _dad_ wasn't anywhere close. He was mostly the word  _father,_ because the word  _father_ was weathered and he had wrinkles like train tracks. One line following the other, a path leading to nowhere. He'd been an airplane pilot since the age of sixteen, but you'd have thought he served in the army, as he was someone clearly hardened out on the inside, just wind blowing around an empty field. It showed on the outside, even if the old guy tried to present the opposite. I knew. 

I remember my dad's counterfeit smile, on this sun-enriched day in June. It was the day after I'd finished my junior year. My mother had kept telling me she was so proud, so proud, so proud, although I knew she was just relieved I hadn't dropped out yet. I should've been proud of myself for that, too, but I wasn't. I was just glad to be away from the high-school-at-the-end-of-the-world. 

Anyway, I was laying around the house because I had shit-nothing to do, and I was exhausted. My dad called me from the screen door in our kitchen, talking about something in The Garage that I had to see, right now, immediately, in some shade of urgency that sounded strange in his voice. I remember, I wasn't too thrilled to be dragging myself off the couch, but I assumed he'd be mad if I didn't, so I ventured out into the swelter of the sun, squinting until my eyes closed. I remember, I made sure to stay on the dry-grass path, instead of walking onto the plane runway, because there were heat lines coming off the pavement that bent the air. Though it wasn't all that hot; the distant forest tree-line swayed in a slight breeze. Seemed like it was a nice day, a kind of peaceful one, for sure. 

The Garage wasn't entirely a garage, per say. It was more a warehouse, this big looming thing, and with no cars inside. There were planes - six to be exact - and they were my father's gems.

The big sliding door was cracked all the way open when I got there. I couldn't tell you what I was expecting.

A Cessna 152 sat on the concrete, glinting as it caught the sunlight. And there, there my father was with his specialty brand smile, hard-edged, but there. He had a grease rag in his hands, which in turn were smothered black. Oil. He just  _stood_ there, staring at me with his exposed teeth, rubbing his hands on the towel, which wasn't even doing any good, all while I was in the open entryway in my tattered sweatpants, sweater sleeves over my hands. Just gaping like I was five years old again. 

The ivory-white base, the blue stripe painted down the tail. The gold accents like garland.

I'd seen this plane before.

"She's yours, son." My father said. 

"What?"

"She's yours." He had this unlifting tone. I'd like to think he was excited, but it was so hard to tell through his teeth. 

"The plane?" I know I sounded stupid. I felt it.

"Yes, boy, the plane." The smile dropped. He turned to pat the passenger door. 

I didn't know what to say. I walked forward, albeit slowly, and stared this dull stare.

"Tyler. Don't you recognize her?"

I knew I'd seen it before. I didn't recognize it, though, not entirely. Though his accusatory tone had me thinking I ought to, so I studied the plane and narrowed my eyes into oblivion, tried to uproot any memory, any one at all, but I was mostly distracted by the flat way my father said my name, so nothing actually surfaced. 

He probably saw the vapid-stare I had going on, because he sighed and said my name again.

"Tyler. It's Bluebird Seventy-four. How could you forget?"

The words that followed  _seventy-four_ were more muffled. I most likely wasn't supposed to hear them, so I pretended I hadn't, and nodded in an over-exaggerated fashion instead. You know, so my dad could  _see_ me remembering. 

"Oh." I said. 

 _Oh,_ because it was Bluebird. It was Bluebird. The first plane my dad ever bought, back when he was younger. My god, the onehe'd taught  _me_ to fly in. The one in which definitely housed memories, mainly filled with arguments and clenched jaws, resentment wedged between the leather seats.

Guess it had been a while since I'd seen the plane. Surely, it was a whole lot brighter than I remembered it. A polished coin with not a dent to be discovered.

"You can't give Bluebird to me." I said.

My dad had been gazing at the plane with far-away eyes. It took him a moment to answer, which lead me to believe he didn't  _want_ to, either. But his mouth stayed pressed; whatever he was feeling, I'd never know. 

"I think it's time she moves on," He turned to me. "And you... deserve it."

I did not deserve it. My dad knew I didn't deserve it. Everyone in town, when news of this got out, would start whispering about how I didn't deserve it.  _Not Bluebird Seventy-four, not Chris' pride and joy... his son? His son will turn that thing to scraps._

Of course, maybe that wasn't true, and I was just making things out to be worse than they were. 

Anyway. After my dad said that, I didn't know what to do with my face, so I pulled this pathetic smile and reached out to touch the plane's smooth finish. It was hard to grasp the fact that it was mine. Truly, my father's passion and well-being and probable reason to exist, all underneath my palm. 

It - it almost made no sense, how he'd given it all to me, handed it over without restraint. It... it did seem too easy, too sudden, too out of character. Of course, I was supposed to be grateful, and I tried to force myself to be. But I saw my father's distance. The reproach of his speech. The fraudulent smile, the forged compassion. Signs of something hidden. I kept note of it. 

***

I meant to fly Bluebird that summer. Honest, I did. I had full intent to take it up and co-exist with the actual blue birds, point and wave at clouds, compare the scene below to that of an ant town, and so on and so forth and all that shit. In fact, I'd promised my dad I would take the  _both_ of us out, I'd fly his good old plane and he'd be there with his straight face, and we probably wouldn't speak the entire ride, but at least the sky would be clear and pearlescent and -

No. It didn't happen. I kept saying I'd go but me  _saying it_ was really me  _putting it off._ Pushing the idea further away with each promise.  _Yeah, next time, maybe next time. You know, I don't feel like it today, I'm feeling real tired today. You know what? Tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow._

I remember, it had been a couple weeks' worth of tomorrows, and I was laying on the kitchen floor, arms out like a starfish, knees bent, fixated on the circular ceiling light. A spot alike to the very sun burned a circle in my vision, but I didn't care. The tile floor was cold and I was sweating and even though I had my hoodie on, I still believed the broken air conditioning was the one to blame. I rotated my hands so that my palms faced the light, allowing my knuckles to feel the cool. Breathed deep. I felt alright this way. Spending time as a part of the floor. Basking in an artificial glow, not thinking of much, not  _being_  much. I had it in my mind that I was simply enjoying summer. 

Mother, though. Her opinion was the arch-enemy to mine.

Her footsteps were heartbeats and they were my first and only warning. Before I could blink, she was there, marching into the kitchen with her good flip flops on ( _not_ the bad ones made out of the rash-inducing rubber, apparently). They entered my line of sight and when they did, I knew she wasn't going to ignore me like she'd gotten used to doing. Guess I'd crossed some kind of line. 

"Tyler Robert Joseph," She said. "What in God's name are you doing on the floor?"

I tried to shrug. "Cooling off."

"It's two in the afternoon. You know that, right? How long have you been laying there?" 

She was flustered. Which at the time, I didn't understand. What was the issue? It wasn't like I'd gone tearing up her garden or started swallowing up the bird-seed. I was just doing what I normally did, nothing strange or inherently bad - she had no holy problem mouthing off to me like it was, though.

She kept saying, "Honestly! Honestly. You've been doing this for two weeks straight. Laying there on the damn floor. Don't you have anything better to do? Why don't you help your father? He's been working hard on the Langley's plane. Out there in the heat. The  _least_ you could do is help. Oh, and what about old Blue, huh? You haven't taken her for one ride yet. And you  _said_ you would. You keep saying you will, but your lazy ass still hasn't moved off my kitchen floor. You know, your father restored his  _plane_  for you. And you act like you don't even care! My God, Tyler. Are you listening to me?"

A lump formed in my throat. I remember staring at the circle until it hurt.

"Sorry."

"Honestly," She sighed. "It's a nice day out. I don't know why you waste your time doing absolutely nothing."

"Sorry," I said it again. "I'm just tired."

It was partly the truth. In retrospect, I could've said more, but her shouting had thrown me. That was what happened when I found someone yelling at me. I'd keep as quiet as I could and let them tear away, and said  _someone_ was usually my mom. Our arguments weren't entirely arguments, they were more like one-sided conversations where she'd end up shouting at herself, or the air in front of her, or the window. They were more like games I always lost. 

"You know what I think," She continued with a raised pointer finger. "I think you're afraid to fly Blue. That's what I think. And you know what? Fine. But at least tell him, Tyler. He won't be mad."

She was most definitely making things up. I wasn't afraid.

"I'm not scared." I told her. My throat was dry.

"Sure. What else is it, then? Why won't you just fly the plane?"

By then, she was all riled up and I had no more interest in explaining things to her. But that wasn't any kind of surprise or shocker. I went along with her game and kept going on like, _I'm tired, mom, I'm just tired_ , until it got to a point where she was likely drained from talking to me, and she threw her hands up.

"Fine, fine. Fine. I don't care. I'm going out to the garden."

The slam of the screen door made me flinch, but I was relieved all the same. 

I hadn't lied to her. I was tired. But I never stopped being tired, that was the problem. It was just this perpetual state. And being so very exhausted everyday, to the point of sleeping through half or whole days, just made the idea of accomplishing things all that more unappealing - I didn't feel like standing on my own two feet, I didn't feel like going outside or helping with the plane repairs or flying the damn plane, for that matter, I didn't  _feel_ like it.

I stayed on the kitchen floor until the sun disappeared. My father eventually walked through the door, waterlogged by his own sweat, but he said nothing to me. Acted like I wasn't even there, just part of the tile. 

I should've thanked him.

At twelve nineteen the following afternoon, my father was dead.


	2. 2

At twelve twenty-two the following afternoon, I was in the kitchen. I was bored out of my mind, just so unbelievably bored and I had  _no idea._  I had my elbows on the counter, head propped up by my hands, and I stared at this glass of water I'd poured. Sun beams had cut through it in wavy divots, illuminating the water with spotlights. I remember, I tilted my head at this obscure angle, trying to peer underneath, trying to act like I was swimming underwater. There was nothing better to do.

I had  _no idea._

At twelve thirty, my mother rushed in from the backyard. The plastic scratch of the screen door was enough to make me turn - and there she was, standing in the door frame, hands dirtied by garden soil, white-knuckling her phone until the skin bloomed red. Her breathing was heavy, and her eyes were bared and wild and afraid.

I didn't know whose face I was looking at.

"Tyler," She said. "It's your father."

 _It's your father._ That could've meant anything. I stared at her and frowned.

Her lips just trembled, she didn't say another word. She walked forward and threw her arms around me while I was still there, leant against the counter, and she cried into my neck. Sobs wracked her in electric currents, and they vibrated through me, like an echo in a hollow cave. Rippled the water in the glass. She cried and cried and inhaled the fabric of my sweater while I stood rather rigidly, uncomfortable, unaware of what was going on. I remember, I blinked four times in a row, processing the moment - but I still had  _no idea._ Not a single inch or pinch or slice of one. My mom was just crying and I only stayed there so she had something to lean on.

"...Mom?" I said.

She didn't hear me.

"What's going on?"

She didn't hear me. Or she chose not to. My neck was damp.

I opened my mouth to say something again, to maybe ask her,  _What's going on, what's going on?  Why are you crying? Why are you crying_ on  _me? Since when do you ever cry, and since when do you ever cry_ onme _?_

But I didn't say a word, I couldn't. I swore there were sirens, bleeding through the brick walls of the house, in from the road outside. My mother was still crying into my neck when they swelled louder. I had to grab her arm, squeeze it tight. I thought I'd  _have_ to grab her, so she'd come back to her senses - so she'd explain things to me, so she'd remember I was there, that I was still there - but it didn't do anything. She kept crying.

_"Mom."_

My voice wasn't nearly firm enough. It was a drowned mouse.

***

I remember, I stood in the screen doorframe as the paramedics walked across our backyard, all seven of them dressed in off-white, carrying an empty stretcher. They moved with purpose, but not  _too_ much purpose. At the time, I still didn't know what was happening, other than the simple fact that my father was hurt. Although I'd later learn "hurt" wasn't the right word at all.

My mother was mumbling somewhere behind me, sat on the couch with some other paramedic named Kathy. They'd been talking back and forth since the ambulance arrived, and it was mostly Kathy's hushed comfort in exchange for my mother's tears. I couldn't understand a thing they were saying - moreover, I wasn't  _trying_  to understand what they were saying. I was more focused on the paramedics, the ones who were strolling out to my father's garage, with their half-cup of purpose. My heart pounded real hard under my collar bones. I thought, maybe they ought to be running, because there was an emergency, wasn't there? Because my father was hurt, wasn't he? He was hurt, so why weren't they sprinting across our big fucking yard, our stretch of land, why weren't they running to save my  _dad?_

The answer was just as simple as that given word, "hurt." There wasn't an emergency.

The paramedics came back towards the house some minutes later with the same stretcher, except now it was occupied. Occupied by a misshapen heap, covered by a wrinkled sheet.

I swallowed. A lump formed in my throat again. The shape underneath the sheet, I couldn't keep my eyes off of it. Of course, of  _course_ I knew who it was, because I wasn't all that dull. As the afternoon sun smouldered on my cheeks, and as the cicadas hummed and as my mother cried and as the seven paramedics neared closer with their heavy stretcher, I knew. I had an idea, actually. And the idea was just as simple as the answer that was just as simple as that given word,  _hurt._

My father, my dad. He was dead.

Someone grabbed my shoulders and pulled me back, someone with a soft voice. They told me to go upstairs,  _wait upstairs, wait up there until this is over,_ and I didn't have much control over my limbs at that point, so I complied without really arguing. My mother was still on the couch, but she'd gone quiet, tear-trails running down her skin. She tried to give me this misplaced glance. I tore my eyes away as soon as I had the chance.

I walked upstairs like a puppet on strings. Pushed past my bedroom door without using my arms at all. Fell onto my bed, covered my head with a pillow. I didn't cry. I only watched the darkness and waited for it to do something. It didn't do anything.

***

"Hi, Tyler. Hi, honey. You there?"

It had to be five or six hours later. Five or six hours later and I hadn't moved from my bed. The only difference now was that my eyes were open, and I had our home phone up to my ear. My mother spoke on the other end in this submerged voice, this unfamiliar-comfort voice, calling me  _honey_ like I was actually all that sweet. She hadn't called me that since I was five.

She was at the hospital. Had been for a while. She must've been sitting in some green-and-blue waiting room with telephones ringing and distant coughs coming from absolute nowhere, kids biting down on tasteless lollipops. It didn't make much sense to me, why she was there to begin with. Because people who died didn't go to hospitals, did they? They left them.

She took a deep breath on the other end. I kept quiet.

"This morning," She started. "Your father was out in the garage. Working on the Langley's Cardinal."

I knew that already. There wasn't a morning where you'd see him anywhere else.

"I was out in my garden. You were still asleep, I think. I don't know, I never know with you."

She paused. Sniffed.

"Anyway. He was out there for hours. I guess he - oh, god, I don't know. He was just so determined to fix Scott's plane, I - you remember Scott, don't you?"

Scott Langley. He lived down the street, just a few miles past the Grassie farm, him and his family. A scruff of a man. Hadn't seen them since I was a  _kid -_ though I hadn't seen much of anyone since I was a kid. I did recall, Scott was something like my dad's best friend. Something like. They weren't entirely  _whole_ , no, no, they were more a friendship snapped in half. I knew my father had never shown his whole self to anyone, except maybe the reflection in the mirror.

I didn't answer my mother's question out loud. I didn't think she wanted me to. She was more so spouting words into the phone, because the phone was the only thing she could vent to. The fact that  _I_ was on the other side made no difference to her.

"Oh, god."

There was a ruffling sound, something like paper. I stayed silent and patient, just waiting for her to say it. I kind of knew where the conversation was going.

"He'd been in the garage for so  _long,"_ She started to cry again. "I went up to check on him. When I walked in he, he was on the ground. The doctors told me he -"

She took a deep breath. I held mine.

"Tyler, he had a heart attack."

There. She said it.


End file.
